Pam’s Pictorama Post: This scene of early comical commercial carnage is brought to us by Diamond Dye which claims to be the simplest strongest fastest and please know that, they have no equal. And of course so easy a child can use them! Additionally the back also boasts news of three new colors Fast Stocking Black, Turkey Redfor Cotton and Brown for Cotton. I guess no one could come up with a nifty name for brown.
Back of card. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Diamond Dyes do not seem to exist today, nor can I find out much about their illustrious history, but they had a robust advertising life in the earliest days of the 20th century. This somewhat unappealing youngster has dipped both her doll and kitty in the dye. I can’t help but wonder if the message at the bottom was also a double entendre – It’s easy to dye with Diamond Dye. Ahem.
Another popular Diamond Dye card, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Back when I was a tiny tot, in nursery school, and we were living in a small house in northern New Jersey. We had our German Shepard already, Duchess, and a lovely black and white cow-spotty male cat named Snoopy. Snoops was a heavy set, slow moving cat of infinite patience – the one I would routinely dress in doll cloths and play circus cat with. He was not a hugely mischievous cat and in fact this might be the only story of its kind I can think of. He was generally in my words today, a very good kitty.
Mom, who was always industrious about home care and maintenance, had gotten the idea to paint the brick floor of the screened back porch bright red. And yes indeed, when she wasn’t looking, Snoopy made his slow determined kitty walk right across that wet paint and kept going, so not only did we have a cat with bright red paws (at first mom thought they were bleeding), but of course his paw prints after he marched across the kitchen. He remained dignified, quite unconcerned and unfazed by the fuss he ultimately caused. The dog, who was always misbehaving, was probably overjoyed to see the cat in trouble for a change. Clearly mom must have flipped out since I remember the whole seen these many years later. (For some reason it also reminds me a story from the same era when a friend of my sister’s smeared lipstick on one of the walls. Mom had great fortitude it seems and she didn’t kill him. His name was David Mount – no idea why I remember that. I wonder what he grew up to be?)
Nifty dye cabinet – wish it was in my collection!
My own experience with dye is limited to some batiking I did in high school and college. To keep the melted wax in place we used cold water dyes which were far easier and less complicated than these early dyes which would have required boiling water. While I am sure they were state of the art in their day, I think I can understand their disappearance. I can only say I know enough about it to know that I would have probably unintentionally ended up looking like this somewhat malevolent looking child if I had tried to use them.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is going to be a very short and sweet nod to Pictorama. This past week saw me zip in from staying with Mom in NJ to 48 continuous hours of Gala prep and execution – a concert and dinner for almost 600 people.
This was followed by the trip back to NJ and, drum roll please, more than 24 hours (and counting) of a vile stomach virus. I don’t think I have had a stomach virus like this in decades and I have been unable to peel myself off the bed here for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. However tea and toast tasted really amazing earlier as my first food since Thursday and I think recovery is in sight.
Second Line from Gala this week.
Therefore, I share a few small cat advertising cards that arrived in the mail in NY earlier this week. This is a tribute to the NJ cats who have decided to rally around me in illness and play nurse even though they normally largely ignore me. Beauregard in particular, has been very attentive and I think Gus is just following him around – much to his chagrin.
Gus to the right and Beau on the left.
These cards came as part of a lot from the Midwest. The Mile-End Spool Cotton Thread sports a little girl with a very large hat and a cat that is reminding me of Gussy a little bit. You can decide for yourself on that. She looks a bit sad in addition to be quite furbelowed. The other card is just a scrap and I am not sure what they were pushing. The kitty (all set for food) and little girl seem somber for advertising. On the back it says Schaefer 217 Cass Avenue, St. Louis.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Lastly, the Standard Java Record injects more energy into the post. This smiling girl and tabby are advertising the Best Coffee in the World. It makes me regret I was not up for my morning cup of joe today and went instead for a cup of tea and honey.
If I had known I was going to be bed bound I would have probably stayed in Manhattan – although Kim should probably be just as glad I didn’t as I sure would have kept him up all night. Nonetheless, seems like we are coming out the other side and it is a sunny pretty day here. I am feeling stronger and will try to get up and around a bit today and a higher energy post tomorrow.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: A colleague I am very fond of said that she believes that all Aquarians like to celebrate their birthday. I generally believe that Susan knows best about just about everything, but I am not sure about this. The secret about me and birthdays is that by nature I actually do not like them, however early on I decided that it was better to put some effort into turning that around and finding the best way to enjoy them.
Over time I have found a number of methods for cheering the sometimes bleak days of February – mostly filling the days with seeing friends and especially other Aquarian celebrants of my acquaintance. The pandemic made that a bit harder although there was at least one birthday dinner outside in the snow in February of ’21. At the height of this practice I think I had five or six folks I would see for lunch, drinks or most often dinner.
Coconut and pineapple birthday cake!
This year mom had a glorious coconut cake with pineapple filling made for the occasion. Luckily there were many folks on hand in New Jersey to help consume it, although I will admit to having made a few meals more or less of it myself. Mmmm! As you can see above – we had munched half of it before I thought to take a photo. (I did manage a piece home for Kim to try.) Also, there was breakfast at Edie’s Luncheonette (which I wrote about previously here) with a friend which also kicked the birthday week off right.
Breakfast at Edie’s Luncheonette is always a treat!
Yesterday on my birthday on an unseasonably warm day, I caught up with one of my favorite fellow Aquarians, Eileen Travell, and she joined Kim and I on a Manhattan mini-adventure to The Grolier Club. Founded in 1884 this club is an institution devoted to all things library, books and paper. It has had several New York homes over its long life and currently resides tucked neatly in a beautiful building on 60th Street between Park and Madison. (More information on it and these exhibitions below can be found here.)
From the Decorated Paper exhibit at the Grolier Club. Catch it before it closes in April!
As it happens two exhibitions I was interested in aligned and we were able to enjoy both, Pattern & Flow: A Golden Age of American Decorated Paper, 1960s to 2000s and Animated Advertising: 200 Years of Premiums, Promos, and Pop-ups. The decorated paper exhibition was based on the collection of the Met Museum’s Thomas Watson Library and curated by a former colleague, Mindy Dubansky. She did a splendid job and the exhibit is full of wonderful papers, but also tools of the trade and other fascinating bits. For you in New York or passing through, it is around until early April and I highly recommend it.
An early sample book from the decorative paper exhibit.
Oddly, these beautiful hand-painted papers seem to end up being used for very pedestrian ends – a familiar Kleenex box design, a box for a liquor. Kim and I agreed that somehow they have not yet really been employed in a way that fulfills their promise.
This exhibit reminded me of one years ago at the Cooper Hewitt on wallpaper. Kim and I started discussing that and while I could not find exactly what I was looking for I did find this post from them, based on their collection, and can be found at Wallcoverings. Fascinating!
This Little Orphan Annie premium was a favorite. I bet she has a deep collection of these premiums with so many great ones!
Next up was pop-up advertising exhibit. Featuring a portion of Ellen K. G. Rubin’s collection, a note online about the exhibition had caught my eye just in time as Saturday was its final day and it was fairly crowded as a result. I gather that Ms. Rubin is interested in all things pop-up and an online search reveals that her collection has somewhere between 9,000-10,000 pieces – so this was a small and select slice. The objects covered in the exhibition ranged over 200 hundred years, although it seems she has items that are far older in her collection.
You can see this one in action, flipping through NYC sites on the website devoted to the exhibit.
While the exhibition has closed it is still available by catalogue (which Kim purchased for me and represents the exhibition well), but also on their website. The nice aspect of the website version is that it also shows some of the objects moving as intended. This was also available in the exhibit by QR code but somehow watching the tiny image on my phone in the gallery was a bit frustrating.
I would have loved to see this Tom Mix Western Movie premium in action!
Finally, we were super intrigued by their shelves of Grolier Club publications for sale. Kim dug in and spent some time examining the lot. Not surprisingly considering their mission, their publications are expertly executed and an interesting lot and although not inexpensive, we may be returning for some of them.
For the record, I gave Eileen an Edie’s mug and she gave me a stunning daguerreotype which I will attempt to photograph and share at a future time – photographing dags is notoriously hard. This a a lovely image of a young girl.
The day wrapped with a trip down to 24th Street to nose around the flea market a bit. A few purchases were made (we did not purchase the photograph above, nor the bird statue behind it which was really calling Kim’s name), but more about that perhaps in a future post too. Eileen headed home and Kim and I settled down for a late lunch before heading back uptown, home to Deitch Studio, the cats and naps.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I had to ferret around the apartment this morning as I had no post in mind having lost a number of auctions lately. (And later today I will be scribbling advance posts to keep you all in Pictorama while I travel to Denver on business next Saturday!) However, I reached deep into the Pictorama archive and pulled out this rather wonderful little gem. It was a gift years ago from Richard Greene, match collector extraordinaire, who had us as guests for a weekend at his home when Kim agreed to do a con in Philly at his request. Richard and his wife live in a house chock-a-block full of interesting bits and pieces he shared with us and they were the very most generous hosts.
Fellow cartoonist (the sadly now late) Jay Lynch was also there for the weekend and it was the only time I ever spent more than an evening with him. I forget the exact year, but it was summer and terribly hot like it is now. The con was in an old, wooden, un-air conditioned building and I remember spending the day stationed thoughtfully in front of a fan.
Richard gave Kim a hat he still wears (if I remember he did advertising lay out for a living) when not in the old Stetson I gave him, and Richard gave me this splendid matchbook from his glorious collection.
Front. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Kernel Lew Mercur’s (Original) Nut Club is pretty darn interesting (and colorful!) in its own right. The back promises dinners, dancing, and laffs. Located in Miami Beach (Alton Road at Dade Blvd.) it was open all night. Cuisine by Delmonico is noted along the top fold. Mr. Mercur’s image, or what we offered as such, is on the front in top hat with a carnation and musical notes.
Verso. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Not surprisingly, there are few tracks on Mr. (Kernal) Mercur or the Nut Club, although I did find a reference to it in a book about the bygone hey day of eating establishments of Miami (Lost Restaurants of Miami by Seth Bramson) and it would seem that the Nut Club was among a proliferation of Jewish cafeteria style restaurants and delis that became popular in Miami at the time. Bramson notes that Mercur did indeed preside over the restaurant in a top hat.
Other restaurants of the time (1940’s?) and place included The Five O’Clock Club (acquired by Martha Reye and which made it into the 1970’s) and Bill Jordan’s Bar of Music, an eponymous piano bar. Interesting that these establishments liked to label themselves as bars and clubs rather than restaurants or cafeterias. (And Cuisine by Delmonico doesn’t much scream Jewish deli to me either.)
Full inside view. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
For me of course it is all about the inside of this matchbook which reveals (voila!) the matches, lined up like a picket fence, emblazoned with a black Tom cat atop a fence with a favorite wheeze, Ya gotta make calls…if you want results, as the other black cat and kittens march below. Devoted and early Pictorama readers will remember a post I did devoted to a celluloid match safe with the same saying. (That post can be found here.) I used to have a postcard with the same image pinned up in my office at the Met.
Celluloid match safe. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Not a spot on this matchbook goes undecorated and the inside cover goes on to assure the visitor, be entertained at the funniest and screwiest place outside an asylum, yes it’s Kernel Lew Mercur’s Nut Club.Never a cover charge! It gives the exact address (1827 Alton Boulevard) and a phone number (5-9952) for reservations tucked behind the matches. At the bottom it says, We’re Never Too Busy to Say Hello! Who wouldn’t want to go and nosh a knish? But most of all, who wouldn’t pocket these matches? So glad somebody did!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Those of us on the East coast are enjoying a massive snow storm, perhaps even blizzard, this last Saturday in January. If you read last week’s post about the January-ness of this particular year (it can be found here if you missed it) you know that my attitude toward this month in general is to usher it out the door as expeditiously as possible. Still, it is January in New York and it is a time to expect some snow and here it is. Meanwhile, there is almost always snow on the ground for my birthday in February, and so the year opens.
I thought we could all use an especially jolly post today to help kick January out the door and this bit of kitty advertising did not disappoint in this regard when it wandered into Deitch Studio earlier this week. It is simply identified on the back with Drink and Enjoy KENNY’S Coffee and Teas.
I was surprised by how quickly I was able to locate a bit of history on Kenny’s coffee empire. Kenny liked a good premium and a handful of mostly ceramic ones are still extant. I cannot say I find the aesthetic of most of these nearly as entertaining as this wacky carload of kitties however. This card is as if Louis Wain did a stint wandering into an otherwise rather staid establishment. Kenny seemed partial to generally less colorful, more sedate and somewhat pedestrian premium. Some of the more jolly however, snatched off current sales on eBay below.
For a quick history on Kenny I got the scoop primarily from an article in the Baltimore Sun published back in 1999. Kenny was C.D. (Cornelius David) Kenny who arrived in Baltimore from Rochester in 1872. He quickly established his first coffee and tea emporium and rapidly expanded his business across several nearby states. The retail stores were shuttered in the early thirties as a result of the Depression remaining solely as a wholesale operation until it was eventually swallowed into anonymousness by one of the enormous food conglomerates.
Onto the kitties. My previous posts about Victorian advertising cards (one can be found here) proved out that generally they were produced en masse with the intention of personalizing the card for a given vendor, not designed for them. So in theory this card could exist with advertising for another vendor printed on the back. For the record though, I have never seen this card before and my nascent searches for information did not turn up other examples.
Our driver kit is on the right side of this sort of Stanley Steamer-type auto, as photos confirm they actually did. He looks a bit nervous about being in charge, but I especially like the white fellow with his paw arms folded across his chest! Indeed! The two boys in the middle section appear to be have a grand time of it and look full of beans – especially the one in the yellow jacket. Faster, faster he cries!
Card as it sits flat. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
In the back of the car a cat couple canoodles while their chaperon looks nervously on. Ha! She has no bandwidth for the thrills of the ride and instead is burdened with her responsibility for fluffy white girl kitty in pink who is holding paws with her dapper boyfriend.
I think you will agree that’s a whole lot of card fun to devote to a bit of advertising which isn’t even a display featuring the company on the front. The card is ingenious in design and how it folds out into three dimensions, creating a great effect; solidly constructing which is why it remains in good shape 100 years later. Even the grill of the card is affixed in such a way as to create another layer. Just splendid!
Back of card. Sturdy despite the age and a few dinks.
While I am tempted to try to find a way of keeping this one on display it resists remaining in the unfolded position and although in very good shape is certainly a bit fragile so perhaps it needs to live tucked into the Pictorama archive.
Meanwhile, the snow continues to pour down and sweep wildly by the window of our 16th floor apartment, piling up on the sill, so I may follow the example set by Cookie and Blackie and, figuratively at least, tuck my nose under my paws and have a snooze filled day.
10:00 am view outside our window.A bit calmer than what I see now!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s a rainy dawn of 2022 here in Manhattan today. We’ve been on a gray and wet jag the last few days and it is a weepy sort of a day. It seems unlikely that the sun is going to make an appearance and make a New Year’s Day walk look attractive, even later today. It is, frankly, not the most promising of New Year’s Days. Therefore, let’s grab a hot cup of coffee and bury ourselves in a bit of trivial loveliness in true Pictorama style.
My opening salvo for the year is this t-shirt I purchased recently. I had a shirt post not that long ago when I found a few very Waldo-esque ones. (That post can be found here. I model again today.) Those t-shirts both hailed from Japan as, I believe, does today’s interesting acquisition. I don’t buy a lot of t-shirts and am more partial to the variation with sleeves which I find more useful as an item of clothing. The baseball shirts have made an excellent addition to my running wardrobe in particular. I find I am a with sleeves or entirely sleeveless kind of girl as far as fashion goes so t-shirts are a bit out of my daily wearing line. (Kim lives in them of course.) I did make an interesting Felix t-shirt purchase which I wrote about not too long ago and it can be found here so I guess shirts are making an inroad into my collecting.
Felix t-shirt in the Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
I found today’s shirt on eBay and grabbed it up for a fairly nominal sum. It is somewhat worn, but I am glad someone saw the value in putting it up for sale online because it entertains me and I glad to have snagged it. It is also a bit large for me or Kim, so I do think it is more of a collectible for us than a fashion apparel statement.
Checking online I did find that these were oddly enough, at one time, sold by Walmart. (They are out of stock now.) It does not appear that they produced them however, but I allow it is possible. The actual shirt comes from the Dominican Republic, but not clear it was printed there, so the trail goes more or less cold. (For those readers who can translate the Japanese I am curious, although I somehow suspect it won’t tell us much more about the history of this shirt. Is it nonsense? Please share if you can translate it.)
This zooty cat fellow has a natty bowtie, a somewhat toothy grin, and clutches positively bulging money bags – errant dollar bills falling out of them and flying around. We are urged to Claim Your Cash Now, 24/7 and assures us it is Fur Real. We are also urged, in English, to call 555-pay-purr now. I don’t know much about the use of English in Japan, but I am curious why this tips so heavily toward English.
T-shirt, Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
At first I wondered if it was sort of a check cashing establishment, but that wouldn’t be claiming cash, would it? Perhaps loans? Claiming seems a bit off for that too, but closer perhaps. Perhaps some sort of lottery or gambling? I like the pun on pay-purr and paper but don’t quite understand it. You will leave these folks with some paper money clearly.
As an aside and talking about Cash, I will mention that Kim and I returned from New Jersey on Christmas Day in style via a car service that goes by Rides with Cash (@rideswithcash on IG and rideswithcash.com). Cash turns out to be an adorable Australian Shepherd who divides his time between the front seat with his Dad and the passengers in back during the ride. He was wearing a jolly Santa suit and spent a fair amount of the ride looking adoring up at Kim with his head in Kim’s lap, enraptured. If it hadn’t been so dark I would have taken photos – but it made the trip go quickly and I hope to cadge a ride with them again soon.
Kim Deitch t-shirt, Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
When it comes to t-shirts of course the ones Kim has made are among the most beloved in my collection (I wrote about this one above in a post here) and as noted, these recent additions have a come hither appeal for their vaguely Waldo with a dash of Felix quality.
So, as we gingerly take our first baby steps into this New Year on behalf of Pictorama and Deitch Studio I send you these best wishes for a prosperous and happy New Year.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This postcard turns out to be a fairly common one, although I had never seen it before purchasing this example. It was never mailed and nothing is written on the back. The image is a bit odd, Barty the puss peering out between the slats of this sort of picket fence effect, perhaps he is on a porch?
A handful of other capable bloggers have already done tribute to Barty and Hal who was a radio pioneer in Long Beach, California. A musician himself (a few ragtime pieces he wrote can be found on Youtube) Nicols channeled it into the early days of radio, starting in high school where he programmed a station which I assume was the school’s station. (I nosed around in the early days of radio, which are fascinating, via a series of books called The Radio Girls and that post can be found here.) Evidently it really was the medium of radio itself that he loved.
Hal Nichols in an undated photo.A photo of Barty appears to be on the wall behind him.
Unfortunately I could not find an example of the radio show to share and no one has really recorded what kinds of music he played on it. Therefore, I will just imagine that Hal played the jazz and dance band tunes of the 20’s and 30’s that I love since that would have been nostalgic in the 40’s and 50’s. (For a tribute to the radio persona who enlightened me on this subject you can find my post about Rich Conaty here.)
Hal purchased the KFOX-AM station (1280 on your dial) with a 20th Century Fox partner in 1924, but the partner bailed early and he became the sole proprietor. According to his obit, he was on air until his death in October of 1953 after a long illness, presumed to be cancer. I am not sure what the broader programming of the station was, but the Memory Room show was nightly at 6:30. (Today it is a Korean language station out of Torrance, California.) In addition to Barty, Hal was survived by his wife Dorothy – who doesn’t seem to get much air time in the discussion of Hal and KFOX.
Article on Barty. Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Barty, who weighed in at 18.5 lbs and was described as a tortoiseshell and white cat (fluffier and more long-haired than he appears in my postcard), entered the picture as early as 1946 and I gather his contribution seemed to be purring into the microphone for listeners at home. It is said he could (would?) purr “on command” (request?), but of course exactly who was doing what over the radio waves is a bit hard to verify. Another writer suggested that maybe Barty just purred all the time – seems unlikely to me as a cat owner. One assumes there was the occasional meow, chirp or mutter as well. Regardless, Barty seemed to manage to transcend the shortcomings of this early communication medium as a cat performer and he had quite a following. His fan mail routinely exceeded that of Hal’s, especially over Valentine’s Day and over the holidays.
The Barty pin, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
As one writer pointed out, being a feline radio mascot was probably a pretty good gig – lots of time with Hal, much attention from staff and I am sure lots of food and treats. I’m not sure fame interests cats much, but of course it is hard to say what their views really might be.
Holiday card not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Hal Nichols had something of a nose for promotion and he ran with the ball on Barty. Holiday cards featuring the feline were produced annually and there were buttons which proliferated as well. This postcard is another example. These collectibles are variously available on eBay, Etsy and at auction although I didn’t see any of the cards for sale except this one I purchased. In my research, I readily came across one magazine page devoted to the duo (which can be found here) and I suspect there were others. There is no indication if Barty headed home with Hal nightly or if the station was truly his only domain.
Holiday card not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
If it were not for the proliferation of pandemic Zoom, I would not have known of my own cat Blackie’s desire for fame and interest in being a broadcast personality. His daily involvement in Zoom meetings (he prefers late afternoon, but will make an exception for especially long meetings – think Board or Committees) earlier in the day. He is charmed by my being such a captive audience for an extended period.
Although his command center is generally my lap, he does make on-air appearances and favors turning his hindquarters to the camera and I attempt to spare my colleagues that view. He also has a gift for chin and ear rubbing his farewell appreciation on the jerry-rigged set-up which frequently sends it flying to the ground, making viewers believe that I have experienced either an earthquake or, more appropriately, a mini sort of Godzilla cat intervention. All this to say as a result, I can easily imagine Barty, perched on Hal’s lap or giving the mic a few ear and chin rubs, or an errant tail knocking it over occasionally, while purring his way into the hearts of listeners across California for many years.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s post is kicking off with this great little advertising card I bought on a whim sometime over the last few months. I like a good cat advertising card and this kitty couple caught my eye. I love that they are holding each other’s paws and their curled tails. They walk on tip toed hind legs – Cookie and Blackie only stand this way in order to box with each other, or perhaps a bit of a stretch when something above interests them. Her expression is sweet and his a bit concerned – concerned being a bit of a go-to expression for kits I find.
She sports the human attributes of a parasol and bow. They are both nicely striped tabbies and the pattern creates some visual interest. Oddly, Doggett, Bassett & Hills Co. was a shoe company and these kitties are decidedly shoeless. Doggett, Bassett & Hills was one of Chicago’s first shoe dealers and manufacturers under the name of Ward & Doggett, founded in 1846. By the early 1870’s they had peaked, but then declined and disappeared in the 1880’s. (All this from an online encyclopedia of the history of Chicago which can be found here.) The website mentions a Lake Street address, but this card is for one at 214 & 216 Madison Street, Chicago.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Despite the fact that I think of Chicago as a city that has done an excellent job of maintaining many of its old buildings, a quick Google image search shows no extant old buildings at this address now. I am always hoping when I search for an old address I find that I will find the building intact even if its former moniker is long gone. I don’t believe I have achieved this to date.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
These pre-printed advertising cards abounded in the period and cats were a favorite subject so they are a bit of a sub-genre here at Pictorama. Merchants must have gone to printers that had endless examples to pick from and chosen a card image to then have their text added at the bottom and sometimes also on the back. I often wonder about how you knew that you weren’t choosing the same one as your competitor just purchased yesterday.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
I have written about some of the others in my collection (above and below) and those posts can be found here, here and here. (All of these examples have their advertising text on the back.) Still, seems a bit odd that the folks at D,B and H would choose these barefoot felines, but who am I to tell them how to sell shoes?
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
There are marks on the back from where this card once resided in an album of some sort, the way and reason many of these have survived. People did seem to hang onto them though – much more so than the boring business cards we generally see today – a few tucked under the plexi cover on my drawing table converted to desk and littering the surface remind me. No one is going to be saving the card from the pest control folks residing there. (Moths!) Cats sell and Madison Avenue has never entirely forgotten that lesson.
Pussy cat postscript: Ah, Caturday at Deitch Studio! Cookie is rolling and stretching at my feet and meowing for attention as I write this. She still chases her tail and was at it earlier, even at seven years old. (I must say, it does have a sort of come hither twitch at the end.) She is by far the chattier of the two kits and wants to converse every morning at some length – we are charged with responding or are subject to her wrath. (Meanwhile, if Blackie ever chased his tail it is a long forgotten practice and he snoozes most mornings after he’s eaten. The difference between boys and girls?) Kim is discussing how awful it would be if he were married to Cookie (I’m pleased I get a higher rating), and it would quickly end in divorce court with a sharky kitty attorney (one a bit smarter than Cookie he added) he says. We’ll have to see if there’s ever a story about Kim and his cat wife – and divorce court kitty!
Cookie also likes to claim my work chair in the morning.Blackie, snoozing earlier this week and showing some fang!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Followers of Pictorama know that one of my new supplier of interesting stuff resides in St. Louis (as always, a shout out to IG friend @MissMollysantiques), giving my recent acquisitions a decidedly mid-western flair – such as last week’s Krak-R-Jak tin box post. (In case you aren’t keeping up in real time, that one can be found here.) That item is also from St. Louis and honors a hometown company.
As an aside, one branch of my family, my mom’s father, hails from St. Louis. They were among the folks who took a covered wagon west and that was where they put down stakes. A generation or so later, my grandfather was traveling the country with the dog races when he met my grandmother at the Jersey shore. I have written several times about her part of the family, a large brood of then recent Italian immigrants who were making their way with restaurants, deli’s and bars. (One of those posts based on a family photo can be found here.) Poppy (as I called him) didn’t go into the family business, but instead worked for the Bendix company while my grandmother continued to help her family’s bar and restaurant. There was travel back and forth to the mid-west to see his family and I have seen a great snippet of film where he and my grandmother are riding a motorcycle out there on their honeymoon to see, and for her meet, his family.
I am developing a real soft spot for it these days, but I have never been to St. Louis – that branch of the family used to come to us rather than us going out there in my childhood and they have all relocated or died now. There is a family story I always liked however about how my father was there on an assignment for ABC News (probably in the 1970’s) and ran into my greatuncle making a call in a phone booth – yep, a phone booth – in a diner or the like and they had a meal together – a city that is a small town story. If the world hadn’t fallen off course with the pandemic and I had continued my travel schedule with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra I probably would have found myself out there by now, and perhaps still will. St. Louis has a great jazz history and remains a good town for jazz.
Original can of paint for sale on Etsy.
I cannot find tracks on whether the Mound City Paint & Color Company exists in any form today, however their name comes down to us via their advertising efforts which seem to reside in the now living memory of what is collectible today. Their Horse Shoe house brand of paint was promoted with a variety of useful items that would remind you that it was their paint you wanted to use when the time for painting arrived. My 1905 calendar card falls into this category, purchased because I was enticed by this Evelyn Nesbit look alike and this nice looking tuxedo kitty, boasting a huge white bow. (Kim and I discussed the various options of if this was actually ripped off of one of the myriad of Evelyn Nesbit photos that would have been available, or just a model who had gotten herself up in the style of her – which must have also been hugely popular in the day.)
Mound City Paint & Color Co. calendar card; Pams-Pictorama.com collection
It would appear that this was one in a quarterly drop of The Season’s Beauties calendar cards. (You are urged to keep up with the full set on the back of the card – Look out for NUMBER FOUR. No duplicates. Preserve the collection. One lost breaks the set.) This one is referred to as The Pippin and places girl and cat in an apple (presumably a pippin) for good measure. It therefore makes sense that this card covered the months of September, October and November, prime apple producing months. Presumably there a special holiday edition of these cards. Sadly, I could find no trace of the rest of the series however, although this nice watch fob below (sold at a Worthpoint auction) is a somewhat rarefied collectible. The folding yardstick is the most available, but least interesting to see. They must have been produced in huge abundance, and given their ongoing useful nature have remained available.
Sold on the Worthpoint auction site.
The advertising on the back of my card seems to be devoted to their brush on enamel product and you are urged to use it on refrigerator shelves (I was a tad surprised to even see the term refrigerator, rather than icebox, although Google assures me the term was already in use at the end of the 1800’s), closet shelves – further down it gets to sinks and bathtubs. It came in WHITE ONLY and had special directions on every can. It then goes into a litany extolling why you should buy this brand instead of a mystery one – the promise that you knew all and exactly what it contained, no mysterious extenders.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection; back of Mound City calendar card.
I close with a few of their stickers which are available on eBay and a final tip of the hat to the longevity of the advertising for the Mound City Paint and Color Company, St. Louis. Like many companies of the era, their advertising turned out to be their corporate immortality.
Pam’s Pictorama Felix Post: As promised, today we have a very Felix day! These two sheets were a long time coming to Pictorama. First they sat on eBay for a long time while I was distracted by other things, and then I finally purchased them and then it took several weeks for them to arrive. I tend to hesitate before committing to very fragile paper items, but in the end I claimed them as mine. I am spying a spot at the top row above Kim’s desk, a bit hard to access, but not too much light. Could be just right. They are great. Here we have Felix at the zenith of his come hither appeal plying his trade to good use.
Both of these sheets of advertising are from Moving Picture World magazines and I will admit that I find the cutting up of these journals to sell for separate pieces distressing, although I understand some are likely worth more for their parts individually. These are fascinating journals in their entirety and I have purchased many a copy of the ancient periodical for Kim, mostly from the ‘teens, and I believe there is even a bound volume of them in the house, that I dimly remember picking up as a gift for Kim, out of an apartment somewhere in Chelsea. These pages have been carefully removed by the staple being taken out of one and a clean cut on the other. The one emblazoned, Felix the Cat Cartoons is from November 21, 1925 and the other is from July 7, 1927.
In the first Felix shows all his moods, like an actor auditioning for a part: thinking, musical, angry, worried and intellectual. He is shown horizontal on all fours (in what I think of as a catty pose) and even chasing a mouse at the bottom. Although he might be going through his paces for this ad, he was already at the height of his fame and auditions were hardly necessary. Here he proclaims, Put me on your screen and see what a bright little fellow I am. My tricks will put your audiences in the best of humor – and I’ll make ’em laugh nine times as many times as a cat has lives. I’m doing it now in five thousand theatres. Felix And below that the added encouragement, Felix means extra profit for the showman who exploits him.
Felix had recently made the jump to Educational Films (the spice of the program) which is mentioned here prominently at mid-page, as is a produced by credit for Bijou Films, Inc. EW Hammond is presenting up at the top (President of Bijou Films) and of course Pat Sullivan gets a huge credit with Cartoons by right next to a Felix running right at it. (That’s a lot of credits for one animated cat, even one as big as Felix. Not surprising, but sadly of course, no mention of Otto Messmer, Felix’s true progenitor.) Felix made 20 cartoons in ’25 by my count via Wikipedia’s filmography (about half before switching to Educational Films for distribution that year), and more than 20 the year before alone so production was in full tilt and there was plenty to watch.
One real gem from 1925 that I uncovered while doing some light research on that year was a nifty full length cartoon made for Mazda Lamps, The Cat and the Kit. It is 98% cartoon with only a smidge of commercial and is definitely worth the watch below. The story follows Felix on his wedding day and the drama around the headlights on his car (called lamps at the time and were much more like lamps than the headlights we have now) which keep going out. He is forced to buy inferior replacements and those don’t focus – requiring Felix to resort to snatching the moon out of the sky – only to be told by a policeman that there is no driving with moonshine in the car!
I can’t resist detouring over to Mazda Lamps for a moment, I’m sure Kim and I are not the only ones still shaking our heads over the beautiful Mazda Lamp display uncovered awhile back on the television show, American Pickers. One is shown below from a site called Design is Fine. History is Mine.
The second sheet, from ’27, shows a parade of Felix-es bringing us all the short features Educational Film Exchanges had to offer. As an avid fan of silent shorts I recognize some – Larry Semon and Lupino Lane. (Kim knows more of them and reminds me that John Arthur was Darla’s father of Little Rascals fame. Remember, Feed ’em and Weep, featuring Mr. Hood on his birthday trying to eat his celebratory meal?) Some are a loss to me such as Tuxedo Comedies or Mermaid – evidently series of comedies that folks, such as Snub Pollard and Lloyd Hamilton, would have come and gone through.
Felix’s own shorts are listed at the top and the large sign he holds up front, mounted on a striped pole, is for Educational Pictures. Meanwhile, I especially like the sign which is pointing toward 1927 and ’28 at the bottom. Pat Sullivan only gets a signature credit here (as if he had drawn it). I see 26 films listed in 1927 for Felix so he was certainly going full steam. I include one below in order to give equal time to 1927, Whys and Other Whys, which kicks off with a soused Felix leaving a nightclub. Watch these while you can – these links to Youtube don’t seem to last forever! (Although a quick search may turn up another source if these have disappeared.)
We are invited to Fall In! and Travel with the leaders of the short features parade. The art on this advertising sheet is hotsy-totsy – it is always a favorite moment of mine within the cartoons to see a virtually never-ending cycle parade of Felix. If studied carefully, two Felix-es on the sheet have been a tad mangled, you can note that the second largest (holding the Lupino Lane placard) and one about mid-page (with the Larry Semon ad) have had a bit of what looks like ham-handed revisions around the eyes. Not sure what anyone was thinking to improve upon Otto Messmer’s genius. (Just a note as well that some of these Felix’es only sport whiskers on one side of their face.)
The back of the ’25 sheet sports an article entitled, The Bar-G Mystery, New Western Patheserial Now in Production (Kim checking that one out in a book now), and ad for the Charlie Chaplin release of A Dog’s Life to be released on November 22, and a rather terrifying ad for Buster Brown with Buster and Tige looming large. Short pieces appear on the recovery of Walter Hiers from an injury sustained during filming which almost cost him his hand according to the article, and announcing Clyde Cook to appear in a new comedy. The verso of the ’27 sheet is an add for volumes on photography by the folks at Motion Picture Photography – one for professionals and the other for amateurs.
Tommy José Stathes (@tomatitojose) has just released the latest in a series of brilliant Cartoon Roots DVD’s featuring some new restorations of rare early Felix cartoons! It can be purchased on Amazon here. I am on the edge of my seat waiting for mine to arrive. His earlier DVD’s are also being re-released and can be purchased here. A bit of a review of one of those earlier DVD’s can be found in a prior Pictorama post here. And on that note I believe I have kicked off the year of ’21 as a Felix friendly one – enjoy!
Pam's Pictorama 